Recap: Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger, Episode 42 – The Fate of This Planet

Bado and Azarudo fight. Bado is able to shave off some cubes from Azarudo, but he of course is able to quickly fix himself. Azarudo sends Bado flying and that sends the Cubes he’s collected flying as well. Azarudo’s regeneration sucks in the Cubes instead of his own purple body cubes, unbeknownst to him and he leaves. Bado wonders how that is possible.

Sela and Leo find a tied-up Naria who is more concerned about her Ginis-sama. Her victim act gets Leo to untie her and she repays him by shooting at him. She calls him naive while holding him. Leo says he would never hurt a woman. Sela kicks him in the stomach which releases him from Naria who leaves. Sela rightly calls Leo an idiot.

Elsewhere, the others find the badly injured Misao. Tusk and Amu say they must take Misao to the hospital. Yamato hesitates about the nearest hospital, but they go.

Yamato carries Misao on his back into the hospital and the nurses come out to put him onto a gurney. A doctor comes running out and it stops Yamato cold.

“I can’t believe we are meeting like this,” the doctor says.
“I didn’t come because I wanted to,” Yamato replies. He asks the doctor to save his friend.

Ginis, Naria and the real Azarudo are back on the Sagitariark while Cubaru is worried for his future.

At the hospital, the nurse tells Yamato that Micchan’s injuries aren’t life threatening. She tells Yamato they must leave for the night, but he wants to stay with him so he won’t be lonely.

The doctor approaches and tells Yamato to stop it. Turns out this doctor is his father.

Yamato says Micchan is a dear friend, so it’s only natural he wants to stay with him. “I’m not like you!”

A quick flashback to when Yamato’s mother died.

Back at the treehouse, the Zyuman4 tell Uncle Mario that Misao is at Amamiya Hospital. Uncle Mario knows what’s up.

Later, Yamato arrives home and tells Uncle Mario that his father has not changed. He doesn’t understand feelings about fear, loneliness or worrying about loved ones.

Uncle Mario says Yamato hasn’t changed either and he goes to get him some trusty hot milk. He suggests Yamato finally have a talk with his father.

Next day, Cubaru decides to lay waste to downtown, murder as many people as possible as his way to atone for his sins against Ginis. The Zyuohgers hurry out to face him and Moebas.

They try to appeal to Cubaru’s own horrific experience in seeing his planet decimated. But Cubaru has resigned to the fact that Ginis is too powerful and they must bow down or be killed themselves.

“I don’t give a damn about this planet!”

That riles Yamato up. He says Cubaru is only trapped in fear of Ginis, but Micchan has experienced it too. And Cubaru merely used Micchan and will now use Earth for his own gain.

The Zyuohgers bombard Cubaru before facing off in a battle of attacks. Cubaru ultimately loses that battle and explodes.

Ginis asks Naria to provide Cubaru with 4 Continues. He embiggens and the Zyuohgers hop into ZyuohKing Octopus, ZyuohWild and Dodekai-Oh.

Cubaru unleashes massive power at the Zyuohgers.

At the hospital, Misao wakes up. He looks out the windows and sees the others getting attacked by Cubaru. He reaches for his flashlight, but is afraid as he gets flashes of his torture at the hands of Ginis.

Misao gets up and struggles with his fear. He wants to change. The headZyumans try to encourage him and say that he must do more than just want to. Misao gets up, puts on clothes and walks out of the hospital.

Cubaru is completely wrecking the Zyuohgers. But Misao arrives in Tousai Zyuoh to stop Cubaru from delivering the final strike.

Micchan says he is on a different level now than he used to be, especially with the others with him. And together, they can defeat Cubaru.

After an in-cockpit roll call, the Zyuohgers summon all the Cubes to knock Cubaru down a little before hopping into Wild Tousai Dodeka King. Yamato says Micchan was able to overcome the same fear that Cubaru succumbed to. And in doing so, has given everyone else the courage as well.

They finish off Cubaru, much to Ginis’ amusement.

The Zyuman4 are happy to see Misao change and become stronger. Yamato says to himself that Micchan is probably more mature than he is.

Episode Thoughts

There were some good things this episode.

I did like seeing the good ol’ Yamato that we’ve come to know and like back again. Recently, there seemed to have been some interesting choices with his character. He had always been nice and friendly to everyone until a couple of episodes ago when he joined in on the “Misao is annoying” train with the Zyuman4.

But this episode reinforced that Yamato really is that nice guy who is sincere in his care for his Micchan. The scene in the hospital where he wants to stay overnight (is that not allowed in Japan?) and then tying that to the biting snap back at his dad was great. That’s the sincere Yamato I was a fan of.

Speaking of, I don’t know why I was under the impression that Yamato’s father was dead too. I just assumed, I guess, with the absence and especially after that whole episode with his mother. But then again, we never really got Yamato and Uncle Mario in many discussions about his parents other than that one episode. At least, none very significant. I think back now to the talk of Yamato running away as a kid (which of course led to him getting saved by a birdman). But we never really got a sense of lingering daddy issues. His backstory had been focused on birdman and then the mini-arc with Bangurei exploiting Yamato missing his mother.

Anyway, I still wish the show touched a little more on Misao’s inner struggles. It didn’t have to be some dark and morbid story. But just show the effects of Ginis’ torture and the guilt of being indirectly responsible for three deaths. That also portrays Ginis’ brutality (Most Dangerous Game!) in a more personal way as it relates to a main character. Couple that trauma with Misao’s lonely childhood, it would’ve been an amazing story if done well.

The Zyuman4 were happy to see Misao grow stronger out of his “curl up in a ball” personality. But they certainly didn’t help him at all to get to this point. If anything, they were making things worse.

About Cubaru, I feel like this was a very underwhelming demise for him. Last episode was great for his character. I think Cubaru has been the most well-developed villain of the season, so seeing him just get offed like that was sad.

And it’s already 42, but we only now get inklings as to Azarudo having some connection to cubes?

Leo setting Naria free at the beginning was just dumb and he absolutely deserved that kick in the stomach by Sela.